Phil the Eternal Optimist
by thewbas
Summary: Dan falls terribly sick and Phil takes care of him the only way he knows how: soup, tea, and moral support. Phil may not be able to make everything better, but he can at least remind Dan that he's not in this alone.
1. Chapter 1

"You're going to have to edit this out," Dan said breathlessly, the words muffled through his sleeve as he buried his face in his elbow. He coughed again, a harsh sound that hurt Phil's ears just to listen to it.

Dan and Phil were working on a video for Phil's channel, but all the talking and laughing seemed to be upsetting Dan's lungs. He'd been sick for over two weeks now—nothing too serious, just a nasty cough. He'd had a fever off and on as well, but neither Dan nor Phil were the type to worry so they had just chalked it up to a chest cold due to the changing weather as October gave way to November.

Phil didn't know what else to do but wait quietly for Dan to finish his coughing fit. It seemed like an eternity before Dan finally raised up his head and took a long, shaky breath. "Owww," he moaned on the exhale. "Hurts to breathe deep."

"Do you want to take a break?" Phil offered helplessly.

"We're almost done," Dan protested, placing a hand protectively over the left side of his rib cage as he coughed once more. "Let's just finish this and then maybe I'll go lie down."

"Whatever you say, Boss," Phil conceded. He didn't like the way Dan looked: absentmindedly rubbing his side, slumped almost imperceptibly to the left in an effort to protect the sore spot. Phil remembered just once when he'd had pneumonia as a child, the way he'd bruised a rib from coughing so hard, and the pain that lasted even after the sickness was gone.

But he didn't say anything more about it. Only Dan knew how he felt and what he was capable of; if he wanted to finish filming, they'd finish filming.


	2. Chapter 2

Dan plodded into the living room and flopped down next to Phil, pulling the fleece blanket off the back of the couch and wrapping it around him like a cocoon. "Fever's back," he said.

Phil scooted himself around so he was facing his roommate. Dan actually looked quite rough, his eyes sunken and his upper lip covered by a thin sheen of sweat. "Are you feeling ok?" Phil asked, even though it was obvious that he wasn't.

"I'm just so achy," Dan sighed. "My rib is killing me."

"Well why don't you take some ibuprofen?" Phil suggested. "That will help both the pain and the fever."

"Already took some."

Phil bit his lip, wondering what else he could suggest to his friend, but coming up with nothing. A heating pad might help with the pain, but he was already hot enough from the fever. And if ibuprofen wasn't cutting it, he didn't know what else they had on hand that might. "I could make some soup," he suggested finally, knowing it wouldn't actually help but hoping it might let Dan know he cared enough to try. Anyway, it was nearly noon and neither of them had eaten breakfast.

A smile pulled at the corner of Dan's mouth. "Ok," he agreed.

Phil set his laptop aside and heaved himself up out of the cushiony grip of the couch, meandering into the kitchen to see what sort of soup-ish ingredients he could find. Dan followed, situating himself and his blanket at the table to watch Phil work.

Phil's first thought was chicken-noodle, because what else do you make when someone is sick? But upon realizing that they had neither chicken nor noodles on hand, he decided to just make a pot of ramen from a package he found in the back of the cupboard. "Sorry, Dan," he said sheepishly.

"It's not your fault we have no food in the house," Dan said with a shrug. "It was supposed to be my turn to do the shopping anyway."

"Well you've been poorly," Phil argued. "I'll go out later and get some stuff, but for now this will have to do." He dished out a bowl and set it in front of Dan, and poured what was left—mostly broth—into a mug for himself.

When the two had finished their lunch, Dan had retired to his bed, and Phil had straightened up the kitchen, he decided to venture out to buy a few things—soup ingredients, for starters, and some more ibuprofen as Dan had gone through nearly all of the medicine they kept in the flat.

The late-autumn air felt unusually cold on Phil's face as he headed back home, bags in hand, and so did the air inside the flat as he let himself in and kicked off his shoes. He turned up the heating on his way up the stairs, and noted that he could hear Dan coughing even in his bedroom with the door shut.

It had been more than a month that Dan had been unwell, and Phil was starting to wonder if it was time to worry yet.


	3. Chapter 3

"Phil?"

Phil groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, pulling the duvet up over his ears.

"Phil?" came the voice again, louder this time, and laced with panic.

Phil opened one eye to see Dan's shadowy form standing beside the bed. As Phil transitioned into wakefulness and his senses grew sharp, he realized that Dan was bent nearly in half, clutching his side for dear life, and as breathless as if he had just finished a sprint.

Phil sat bolt upright. "What's happening?" He demanded. "Are you ok?"

Dan shook his head, unable to speak, and sank down to his hands and knees. Phil jumped out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and ran across the room to turn on the light. Now that he could see better, he realized that Dan had sweat rolling off of him, his hair stuck up in wet spikes. The sleeve of his hoodie was stained with fresh blood and his face was whiter than Phil had ever seen it.

"Dan, can you talk to me?" Phil asked, terror welling up in his chest and making him nearly as breathless as Dan was.

"I'm ok," Dan gasped, obviously lying. He made an attempt to straighten up his posture, but quickly fell back onto his knees with a cry of pain. "I'm fine—I just," he gulped in a breath of air before continuing, "I just think—I should maybe—go to A&E?" He leaned up against the side of Phil's bed, exhausted from the effort of speaking.

Phil was already wriggling into a pair of jeans. "I think you're right, Dan," he agreed, using every ounce of restraint within him to keep his voice calm and collected. "Should I call an ambulance?"

"Please don't!" Dan cried. "I'm fine—just—a cab—will do." He coughed harshly into his elbow, a wet, drowning sound that was quite a change from the dry cough he had had for the last month and a half. As Dan lifted his head, Phil realized that that was where the blood stain on his sleeve had come from—he was coughing it up.

Phil grabbed his phone and called for a cab, simultaneously slipping into the first pair of shoes he could find, and grabbing a pair for Dan as well. He put his arm around Dan's waist, careful to avoid the sore spot on his rib cage, and together the two made their way down to the front door to wait for the cab to arrive.

The journey to the hospital felt like it lasted for hours, Dan curled into a ball struggling to breathe and Phil watching helplessly, rubbing little circles on his friend's back. When they finally did make it to the emergency room, the staff wasted no time in bringing Dan back and getting him onto a bed. Phil had worried that they might have a long wait once they arrived in A&E, but when the triage nurse got one good look at Dan she let him through straight away.

Everything happened quickly after that: a nurse placed an oxygen mask around Dan's face, while a tech drew blood for labs and placed an IV in Dan's arm. The nurse started a bag of IV fluid and set to work listening to Dan's lungs, his face a mask of concentration as he focused his attention on what he was hearing. A look of concern flickered across the nurse's face for a nanosecond before he straightened up, placing his stethoscope back around his neck. "The doc will be in with you shortly," he announced before retreating from the room.

Phil wondered what the nurse had heard that had caused that barely-noticeable change in expression, but when the doctor came in to listen for herself she hovered over the exact same spot, pursing her lips in concentration. She then set to work feeling around Dan's chest, palpating his ribs. Dan was breathing easier now after some oxygen and a small dose of morphine, but even so, when the doctor reached the upper left side of his chest he nearly leapt off the bed with a startled yelp.

"My apologies, Mr. Howell," the doctor murmured, her tone kind but brisk. "We'll get you a bit more morphine—you could clearly use some. Now, I've put in for an X-ray and a CT scan to see if we can figure out what's causing this. My initial thought based on your symptoms is a possible broken rib, which could potentially have collapsed your lung, although you have no recent injury that would theoretically have caused such a thing—is that correct?"

"Not that I can think of," Dan answered.

"Well, either way, these tests ought to clue us in and help us decide what to do next. Once you've finished in the imaging center, you will be brought to the ICU for close monitoring, at least for the next day or so. Now don't let that scare you—at the moment I would consider you relatively stable—but myself and the intensive care doctor would feel better if we had a close watch on you until you feel a little bit better."

Dan nodded, eyes wide. Phil wondered if it would be weird for him to reach out and give Dan's hand a quick squeeze to comfort him, but under the circumstances he didn't think Dan would mind. Phil was surprised by how cold Dan's hand was, considering the fact that he was still dripping with sweat.

"Listen," Phil said, "I'm going to wait for you upstairs. As soon as you are settled in your room I'll be there, okay?"

"Ok," Dan answered. His voice was still weak and his face still pale, but Phil felt a thousand times more at ease leaving him now that he wasn't gasping for air anymore.

Phil headed off down the hall, stopping at the nurses' station to ask where he should wait. The directions he got took him through a maze of hallways to an elevator, which he rode up to the third floor. When the doors opened, the first thing Phil saw was a large sign saying, "Medical Intensive Care Unit," and under that a smaller sign that said "Family Lounge" with an arrow pointing down the hall to a little glass-walled room filled with couches and televisions.

Phil had the place to himself, which wasn't all that surprising at four o'clock in the morning, so he stretched out on one of the couches and shut his eyes. It didn't take long at all for him to fall fast asleep, worn out by all of the night's happenings.

When Phil woke again, he glanced at his phone to check the time, and was startled to find that nearly two hours had gone by and nobody had come to tell him that Dan was ready. He had been promised that a nurse would come out to get him as soon as Dan was settled and ready for him. Had something terrible happened?

Phil pulled his knees to his chest. Surely somebody would have come out and told him if things had gone wrong. Maybe they were still getting him settled. Phil didn't know how long a CT scan took—maybe it took two hours just for that. Maybe they had decided to run other tests as well. Maybe Dan was just sleeping and they wanted to let him rest a while before bringing Phil in.

Phil was so busy contemplating all of the things that might have gone wrong (or not) that he didn't notice the scrub-clad young woman that had stepped into the room until she called his name. "Mr. Lester?"

Phil snapped to attention and stood, his knees cracking as he straightened them. "That's me."

"I figured," the woman said with a smirk, glancing around at the otherwise empty room.

Phil laughed nervously. "Sorry."

"I'm Kate, Daniel's nurse," she announced, reaching out for a handshake. "I apologize for the delay—we had a few things we needed to get done when he got to the room. But he's ready now."

"Thanks, Kate," Phil said, instantly put at ease by the nurse's calm, friendly demeanor and kind features. He followed her down the hallway, past the nurses' station with all its beeping monitors, past rooms full of patients hooked up to ventilators and numerous IVs and other machines that Phil couldn't identify. He wondered what he would find when he reached Dan's room.

Kate stopped in front of the very last door in the hallway. "This is you," she announced. "I'll leave you to it, but let me know if you have any questions."

"Thanks," Phil relied, steeling himself with a deep breath. He gently pushed open the door and eased himself into the room.

In the middle of the room was a very complicated-looking hospital bed, with a very frail-looking Dan huddled in it under a mound of blankets. He was fast asleep, so Phil sank down into a chair beside the bed, crossed his legs under him, and began to take stock of his surroundings.

Beside Dan's bed, on the far side, was a tower of IV pumps stacked on a pole. One had what was obviously a blood transfusion running through it, and the others had various fluids and drugs, the labels of which Phil couldn't read at this distance. On Phil's side of the bed was a contraption he had never seen before—a narrow plastic box with some measurements printed on it, filled up to the 65-mark with a bloody-looking fluid. The box had a tube leading in the direction of Dan's chest, although Phil couldn't see exactly where it led because of all the blankets in the way. He gathered that it was a drain of some sort, and he decided that he would ask Kate about it whenever she came back in.

The last thing Phil noticed was that Dan was no longer wearing the big, clumsy oxygen mask he had been wearing in the emergency room. It had been replaced by a thin nasal cannula draped under Dan's nose, and Phil found the sight very comforting—he knew that the nasal cannula delivered less oxygen than the mask did, so that must have meant that Dan wasn't requiring as much as he had been.

He looked peaceful as he slept—his breathing was slower, deeper, and his face was no longer painted with the panicked expression of a person drowning in his own fluids. He looked so peaceful, in fact, that Phil felt compelled to take a picture of the sight before him. Maybe he would post it for the fans to see later on, or maybe he would just keep it for himself, but either way he wanted to capture the immense relief that he felt now as compared to the fear and urgency of the past several hours.

Suddenly, the IV pump with the blood transfusion began to beep a high-pitched, unobtrusive alarm. Phil wondered if he should use the call button to tell someone about it, but just then Kate appeared in the doorway. "That's the blood finished," she announced.

Phil watched as she took Dan's temperature, writing it down on a sheet of paper, along with his blood pressure and heart rate. She then disconnected the blood tubing from Dan's arm, flushing the IV catheter with some saline and tossing the blood bag in the biohazard bin.

Phil watched all this with curiosity—Kate looked so sure of herself as she bustled about the room, adjusting IV pump settings, giving Dan some other drug through one of his IVs, listening to his lung sounds. She came around to Phil's side of the bed and checked the drainage box that Phil had been wondering about. She marked the level of the drainage with a permanent marker and recorded it in the computer.

"Sorry—Kate?" Phil asked timidly.

Kate spun around, her flurry of activity put on hold for a moment. "Yes?"

"What is this for?" Phil gestured to the box at his feet.

"That's called a chest tube," Kate replied. "It leads through the side of Daniel's chest. It doesn't go directly into his lung, but it ends right in the area immediately surrounding the lung. Daniel had quite a bit of blood building up in that space, which we call a hemothorax, and that was putting pressure on his lung and making it so he couldn't breathe. By draining the hemothorax, we're helping to normalize the pressures and let him breathe better."

By this point, the noise and activity in the room had woken Dan up. He scooted himself up in bed, wincing in pain. "How did the blood end up there, then?" he asked.

Phil hadn't even noticed that Dan had been listening. He was happy to hear his friend's voice.

"There are a lot of reasons why that can happen," Kate replied. "In your specific case, we haven't quite figured that out just yet. But we'll keep you updated with details as we get them."

Dan settled back against his pillows. "Ok."

"Now," Kate went on, "I'm about to leave for the day. Your daytime nurse will be checking in on you shortly, after we finish meeting for report. I'll be back tonight, though, so I'll see you then."

"Thanks for everything, Kate," Phil offered. He was so appreciative of her explanations and the way she so effortlessly handled Dan's care.

"I'm happy to help," Kate replied as she slipped out the door.

Now that the room was quiet once more, Phil scooted his chair a bit closer to the bed. "How do you feel?"

Dan smiled weakly. "A million times better. I can breathe again, which is always a plus."

Phil was glad to hear a hint of Dan's natural snarkiness creeping its way back into his tone. "Can I see where the chest tube goes?"

Dan raised an eyebrow. "You want to see where a hole was sliced into my chest and a tube shoved violently inside of me?"

Phil laughed awkwardly. "Well…yes."

"I haven't even seen it myself yet," Dan mused, lifting up his hospital gown. Phil traced the tube from the drainage chamber up to Dan, following its path as it snaked up and around to the side of Dan's chest, nearly to his back, finally disappearing underneath a thick white bandage. "What does it look like?" Dan asked nervously, unable to turn and look for himself.

"There's not much to see, really," Phil answered. "It's just covered with a bandage." He gently straightened Dan's gown, covering up the area once more. "What does it feel like?"

Dan wrinkled his nose. "Hurts like hell. I can barely move, and that's even after they've been pumping me full of pain meds. But this is nothing compared to how it felt when they were putting it in. Worst thing I've ever experienced."

"I'm so sorry, Dan," Phil murmured, unsure of what else he could say.

"But it's okay," Dan went on. "Any amount of pain is better than the feeling of not being able to breathe. Now _that_ was scary."

Phil nodded. "You really had me worried."

"Thanks for bringing me here. I could tell you were just as scared as I was."

Phil laughed. "But I was trying so hard to hide it!"

Dan rolled his eyes. "Phil. You know you suck at hiding your emotions. If I hadn't been almost dying I would have found it rather entertaining to watch you try to pretend you weren't panicking on the inside."

Phil crossed his arms. "Shut up."


	4. Chapter 4

After Dan had halfheartedly picked his way through a breakfast of eggs on toast, Phil decided he needed some breakfast of his own. He made sure Dan was going to be okay by himself for a bit, and then he headed home to grab some breakfast and pack a bag with his and Dan's laptops and few bits of clothing and toiletries.

When Phil returned to the hospital a couple of hours later, something in Dan's demeanor had taken a turn for the worse. As Phil walked into the room, Dan was curled on his side facing away from the door. Phil set his bag down in the corner and placed the cup of coffee he had bought for Dan on the bedside table, being intentionally noisy to alert Dan of his presence.

But Dan didn't move or speak. Phil thought he must be sleeping and immediately felt guilty for making all that noise, but as he came around the bed to the side that Dan was facing, he was surprised to find Dan wide awake.

"Dan?" Phil asked, positioning himself in front of Dan's face.

Dan didn't answer. His chocolatey eyes flickered to meet Phil's for just a heartbeat before resuming their empty, blank stare in the direction of the window.

"You ok?" Phil asked, suddenly concerned. Was he breathing ok? Was he feeling badly again?

Dan nodded, still without saying a word.

Phil sighed. Dan had a tendency toward the overly-dramatic, and he was probably just having himself a little pity party. "I brought you Starbucks?" Phil offered, wondering if that might cheer him up.

"Thanks, Phil," Dan said, a reluctant smile playing at the corners of his mouth, although he made no move to get the coffee, despite the fact that it was well within his reach.

"It'll be cold if you don't drink it soon," Phil scolded.

At this, Dan finally snapped out of whatever sulky trance he had been in and sat himself up to drink the coffee. Phil smiled triumphantly to himself—Starbucks was usually all it took to get Dan back into his right mind.

But even as Dan sipped at his sugary drink, something in his face still left Phil wondering what had happened in the time he'd been gone.

"What's wrong?" Phil finally asked.

Dan slurped his coffee, long and loud, and hesitated a moment before answering. "I'm scared," was all he said, but it tugged at Phil's heart strings.

"But you're doing better already," Phil protested.

"But I—it's just that…" Dan looked as though he might cry.

"What, Dan?" Phil reached out a hand, placing it on Dan's forearm. "Tell me what happened."

"They think it's cancer," Dan blurted out. "There's a mass on my rib and a spot on my lung and they don't know what it is and they said maybe it's cancer, but maybe it's not, but probably it is."

"Oh." Phil didn't know how else to respond. He should never have left Dan alone. He should have been here when the doctor came in to talk to Dan. He should have been here for support, because nobody should have to hear the word _cancer_ spoken about them for the first time without having somebody by their side to lean on.

The two sat in silence until the coffee was all gone, and a nurse came in to fix a beeping IV pump, and a dietary person dropped off Dan's lunch tray, and nobody really said anything for a good while, and the silence wasn't awkward but it was unbearably heavy, and finally Phil had to break it for his sanity's sake. "So what's going to happen next?"

Dan shrugged. "Tomorrow if I'm stable enough they'll do a biopsy. They've already done a bunch of blood tests and they'll probably do more, and those will tell us how likely it is that it's cancer, but the only way to know for certain, and to know what type, is the biopsy. They said it'll be quick but probably hurt, but at this point what's a little more pain on top of the agony I've already been through? I feel like at this point they could rip my lungs out of my chest altogether and I'd hardly notice."

Now it was obvious to Phil that Dan was, indeed, having himself a pity party. However, this time it was different—this time a pity party seemed entirely appropriate. So, instead of trying to drag Dan out of his sorrow, Phil joined him in it. "I'm so sorry."

Dan wiped his nose on the back of his hand like a child. "I'm trying so hard to be optimistic about it, but they're already pretty confident that it's cancer and so hanging on to the shred of a chance that it's not cancer feels like hanging on to false hope."

Phil didn't want to agree with Dan because that point of view felt overly pessimistic, and Phil was certainly not a pessimistic person, but he had to admit that his friend had a point. Right now there was just not a whole lot that Phil could think of to say to fix this.


	5. Chapter 5

The biopsy was completed the very next morning, and everything that Dan had been told in advance by the doctor ended up coming true. Yes, it was a quick, simple procedure, and yes it hurt like anything, and yes it was cancer.

Ewing's sarcoma, to be exact. What had likely happened was that the tumor had started in bone (as this type often does), and in Dan's case this bone was a rib. That explained the terrible pain and fevers he'd been having for almost two months. The cancer had probably been there for considerably longer than that, but since Dan didn't start having the symptoms until later, there had been nothing to clue them in to its presence.

At some point down the line, the cancer had spread to Dan's lung—a common occurrence, albeit an undesirable one. This was what had been causing the terrible cough, and ultimately the hemothorax that had brought Dan into A&E just two nights ago—two nights that felt like years.

So now that the healthcare team had an idea of what they were looking at, the next step was forming a plan to eradicate it. Since the only place the cancer had spread thus far was the lung, Dan had a decent chance of survival—thirty per cent, they were told, or maybe even better. But the key would be starting chemo and radiation as soon as possible before the cancer spread anywhere else, severely diminishing Dan's already-questionable chances. They would attempt chemotherapy for several months, and then re-evaluate and go in for surgery if feasible.

So that's exactly what they did. Dan went back to the ICU after his biopsy and spent one more night there to recover completely from the anesthesia, and the next morning his chest tube was taken out, he was completely off of his oxygen cannula, and he was sent to the cancer unit to begin his therapy.

The cancer unit was much different to the ICU. The rooms were smaller, the beds were more comfortable, and Dan no longer needed to be hooked up to constant heart monitoring, nor did he have his blood pressure taken every hour on the hour—every four hours at most, he was told. He no longer had the chest tube, the oxygen, or the multiple IVs to tie him down either, so he was given the freedom to get out of bed by himself and wander the hospital as he pleased.

Phil could see that Dan was much happier now that he could be relatively independent again. He had traded in his hospital gown for his favorite Christmas jumper and pajama pants, so he was looking a bit more like himself as well. He was even permitted to get in the shower—a huge improvement over standing at the sink with a damp cloth and the supervision of a nursing aide, which had been the closest thing to a shower that Dan had had in days.

When Dan emerged from the bathroom after his shower, dressed in his own comfy clothes and his hair all spiky and wet, Phil couldn't help but smile. It had been a rough few days, and it would continue to be a difficult journey from here on out, but in this particular moment Dan looked like himself again.

Dan's first couple of doses of chemotherapy went very well indeed. His nurse would come in early in the morning to hang a bag of the _drug du jour_ , as Dan jokingly called it. This would take a couple of hours to infuse, during which time Dan's vitals would be closely monitored, but then in the afternoon he was pretty much free. It didn't take long until both Dan and Phil knew the hospital like the backs of their hands.

Dan started out feeling pretty well—the pain from his chest tube and biopsy was quickly resolving, and the pain from the mass on his rib was kept under control by his scheduled meds—although he didn't even really need those terribly often, either.

Phil had started venturing away from the hospital more and more while Dan was sleeping or contentedly browsing tumbler in the lazy afternoons. Phil was no longer afraid of leaving his friend alone and coming back to find him in a bad way. Things were looking up.

However, as the chemo drugs built up in Dan's system over the next couple of days, they started wreaking the havoc for which they're famous.

Phil first noticed it (perhaps before Dan even noticed it himself) as Dan was lying in bed with his laptop, his morning chemo nearly finished. He was strangely fidgety, which was unusual for him once he'd assumed his "browsing position." He had only about a half hour left in his chemo infusion, and after that the two had planned on moseying up to the cafeteria for a late lunch.

But Dan's stomach had other plans. As soon as Phil had picked up on Dan's discomfort, all he could manage to do was worry. He didn't dare mention it, though—for the moment Dan seemed sufficiently distracted by the internet, and maybe if neither of them brought it up the feeling would pass.

It appeared as though Dan was following the same train of thought. As he grew more and more restless, his face took on a sickly pallor and a thin layer of sweat broke out across his forehead. He kicked the blankets off and scooted himself up in the bed. Then he pulled the blankets back up to his chin and curled up, balancing his computer on his knees. And not a minute later the blankets were back off again and he was lying flat on his back. It was obvious that he was feeling poorly and trying very hard to deny it.

Phil watched from his perch on the cushioned bench against the wall as Dan put his laptop to the side and sat himself up. Dan glanced over in Phil's direction, but quickly turned away once more when he realized that Phil was watching him.

Dan was now seated cross-legged on the bed, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees. Phil could see the rise and fall of his back as he took a few slow, deep breaths.

"Phil, I don't feel so well," Dan said after a moment.

 _Damn you,_ Phil thought. _You weren't supposed to say it out loud!_ But the words that actually came out of his mouth were more along the lines of, "Should I call the nurse? I'm sure she could give you something for it."

Dan shook his head. "It'll pass. I just need to focus."

Phil chewed his lip nervously. He really didn't handle vomit well at all, but if Dan was actually telling the truth, it hopefully wouldn't come to that. However, as Dan's slow deep breaths grew quick and ragged, Phil started to panic. His own stomach began to turn as he watched Dan's misery, and he had to turn away and shut his eyes. "Please let me call the nurse," Phil pleaded.

"Don't want to bother her," Dan whispered. "Anyway, I'm fine." The way he pursed his lips and panted through his nose, however, suggested otherwise.

 _Don't freak out,_ Phil willed himself as he scoured his mind for an excuse to get up and leave the room. He was just in the process of standing up when Dan's breath hitched audibly in his throat. _Crap_.

"Where's the sick bag?" Dan asked in a small, tight voice.

Phil scanned the room, frantically searching for the little blue plastic bag that the nurse had given Dan at the start of the infusion. Dan had tossed it aside, sure he wouldn't need it, but now Phil wished he knew where it was.

Dan gagged once, searching for any empty vessel he could find. He was tethered by his IV line so he couldn't make it to the toilet, but he didn't have any other option nearby. He gagged again and clapped his hand over his lips.

And suddenly, like a miracle, Phil found the sick bag at the end of the bed under the blankets. He thrust it under Dan's chin just as Dan's meager attempt to hold back the vomit gave way.

There Phil was, a self-proclaimed emetophobe, holding this little blue bag in his bare hands while his best friend retched violently into it. Nothing about this situation was okay with Phil, and he found himself gagging right along with Dan.

"Hold this," Phil commanded, picking up Dan's hand mid-vomit and thrusting the bag into it. Dan didn't look up from his present task; he just clutched the bag closer to his face, freeing Phil to flee the scene.

It was already too late, though, for as soon as Phil's hands were free he found himself holding them over his own mouth as he made a mad dash for the bathroom, shutting the door behind him in the hope that nobody would hear as his breakfast made an unsavory reappearance.

Once Phil had caught his breath again, he flushed the toilet and slumped against the wall, breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest and his hands shaking. He was frustrated with himself for acting so foolishly—how could his stomach betray him like that?

In the moments that followed, Phil noted that Dan was no longer retching. Instead, Phil picked up on a rather unexpected sound—Dan was laughing hysterically. Phil felt a fiery blush rise up his neck, coloring his face a deep shade of red. He was embarrassed, but that wasn't about to stop him from giving Dan a piece of his mind for laughing.

When Phil emerged from the bathroom, he was even more mortified to find that Dan was not the only one laughing—the nurse's face was painted with a smirk as well as she injected some nausea medication into Dan's IV.

"Phil," Dan cried, hardly able to speak. His face was as red as a beet as well, but from laughing so hard. "Phil, what on earth was that about?" He retched again, holding up a fresh new sick bag as he somehow managed to laugh and vomit at the same time.

Phil almost turned right back around for the toilet again, but somehow he found himself laughing too. This was quite possibly the most ridiculous situation he'd ever witnessed. He was still mortified, but Dan laughing maniacally whilst being sick was quite the sight to see.

"Dan, you're an ass," Phil declared, crossing his arms in front of him and trying very hard to look angry. He failed, a smile fighting its way across his face.

"You can't call someone with cancer an ass," Dan argued, still laughing but apparently done being sick for the moment.

"I'm not talking to cancer-Dan," Phil shot back. "I'm talking to asshole-Dan."

"Fair enough," Dan conceded, still chuckling quietly to himself as he leaned back against the mountain of pillows behind him.

Phil resumed his rightful position on the bench by the bed, still nursing his internal wounds of mortification, but also thrilled to see Dan laughing again for the first time in a while.


	6. Chapter 6

"Dan," Phil called through the crack underneath Dan's bedroom door. "We're going to run out of time!" He already had his shoes and coat on, while Dan hadn't yet emerged from his bedroom for the morning.

"If you must know, I'm _trying_ to wrap your Christmas present," came Dan's muffled voice, sounding put-off.

Phil raised his eyebrows. "When did you manage to get me a Christmas present?" Phil had barely let Dan out of his sight since they had come home from the hospital a week and a half ago.

"That's not important," came the reply. "What's important is that I get it done before we leave, because I know I won't want to do it when we get home."

Phil knew what Dan was talking about. They were headed to the outpatient infusion center at the hospital for Dan's chemotherapy. He got his chemo twice a week, starting early in the morning and lasting until lunch time, and he was always pretty sick for a day or two afterwards.

Dan and Phil had formed a sort of ritual around the appointments: whenever Dan finished his infusion, usually around noon, he and Phil would stop for lunch and ice cream on their way home. Dan liked this for two reasons. The first was that throwing up hurt less when there was food in his stomach (especially really good food), and the second was that he could eat as much as he wanted without having to worry about gaining weight since it wouldn't stay in his system long enough to be fully digested.

Once the lunch and ice cream portion of the ritual was accomplished, Dan and Phil would head back to the house, where Dan would retreat immediately to his bed and sleep like a rock until his stomach startled him awake and sent him running to the toilet, where he would then spend the rest of the night curled up on the tile floor with his duvet and his laptop.

Phil's part in this whole ritual was mostly moral support and tea making. Dan never really drank more than a couple of sips of the tea, but Phil always made it anyway, driven by the need to feel helpful in a situation that couldn't really be helped. The doctors had told them that the side effects would be less and less as the time went by, but apparently not enough time had passed yet because Dan was still pretty miserable most of the time.

And this day was no different—except that it was. This day was Christmas Eve. Dan wasn't actually due for his treatment until Christmas Day, but the infusion center was closed for the holiday and Dan's appointment couldn't be delayed.

Christmas was Phil's favorite time of year, but this year things just didn't feel the same. Normally he and Dan would be travelling, visiting friends and family, running around town, filming special Christmassy videos for their channel. But this year they spent much of their time close to home, since when Dan wasn't riddled with nausea he was achy, tired, and weak.

But despite the unfortunate circumstances, Phil still made every effort to make it feel like Christmas. He'd made Christmas cookies and hot cocoa on the days when Dan was feeling up to eating, and he'd even managed to rope Dan into helping him set up and decorate their Christmas tree.

This morning Phil was happy to find Dan wrapping Christmas gifts. Phil's biggest worry through all of this was that Dan would become depressed and lose his quintessential Dan-ness, but the fact that he still had a touch of holiday spirit came as quite a relief to Phil. As such, Phil didn't rush his roommate. They could be late to the appointment just this one time.

Phil had already called in advance to say they wouldn't make it to the Christmas Eve party that they'd been looking forward to for weeks with their closest friends. He'd considered settling Dan into his bathroom-floor duvet fort and then heading off to the party by himself, but half the fun of parties was sitting in the corner with Dan eating all the snacks. No way was Phil going by himself.

Once they arrived at the hospital, it didn't take long to get Dan checked in. Today he had to have some blood drawn before the nurse could start the infusion, just to make sure that Dan's blood counts weren't dropping too low to continue the treatment. They'd been warned that if his counts dropped too low or too fast, they'd have to pause for a bit to let his body recover.

But so far Dan's counts had been dropping only as low as could be expected as a normal side effect of the chemo. Once the results were back and he was cleared to start the infusion, the nurse hooked up some fluids to the port that he'd had embedded in his chest before leaving the hospital after he was first diagnosed. She also gave him a pre-emptive shot of nausea medicine before going to get the chemo drugs ready. The clinic wasn't crowded today, so Phil helped himself to the empty recliner next to Dan's.

The two usually spent the majority of the time in silence, browsing the internet on their phones or flipping through the TV channels—not that there was ever much of anything good showing on weekday midmornings.

Once the infusion was over and Dan had been cleared to leave, he and Phil headed out into the winter air. It most definitely looked like snow was in store, judging by the thick white sky and the bitter wind. A white Christmas would be beyond perfect, Phil thought.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked as Dan zipped his parka all the way up to his nose.

"For now," came the muffled reply.

"Well let's get inside quick, then," Phil suggested. "Anyway, I'm starving."

The two decided on a nearby sandwich shop; this way they could get their lunch and ice cream all in one spot, and hopefully make it home before Dan froze to death. His lower blood counts combined with all the weight he'd lost since he first fell sick made it so that he couldn't tolerate the cold very well.

After they'd eaten and made their way home, Dan retired to his bedroom and Phil set to work wrapping the gift he'd gotten his roommate—a knit cap adorned with colorful fair-isle type llama designs. Dan had decided to bite the bullet and shave his head earlier that week, and so far he only had one tired old hat that he would wear to cover his head. Phil thought he could use another, and the llamas were just the icing on the cake.

Dan never ever took off his hat, not even when they were at home. Phil still hadn't actually seen Dan's bald head. He couldn't imagine what his friend could possibly look like without the hair that had been such a big part of his persona. He didn't really want to find out, to be honest. Maybe that was an insensitive thought to have, but the truth was that Phil would be just as happy to never know.

He sighed, leaning back onto the chilly floor and scooting himself underneath the Christmas tree. As a child, one of his favorite Christmas memories was lying underneath the tree and staring up through the branches at all the glimmering lights and colorful baubles. When he was very small, he'd often fall asleep there, completely hidden, sending his mother searching through the house for her missing child.

Now it was all he could do to shove his lanky self under there, his legs sticking out into the middle of the living room. But he was still just as mesmerized by the lights and colors as he had always been.

Phil lingered there for a long while, drifting in and out of his thoughts until the floor grew too cold and hard against his back, causing him to relocate. He still had some time before he anticipated Dan waking up, so he decided to straighten up the kitchen like a good roommate.

Just as he was finishing up, he heard the patter of urgent footsteps down the hall, followed by the slamming of the bathroom door. _Right on time_ , he thought, noting that it was just past seven in the evening. Dan had slept for several hours, and now it was time for him to build his nest on the bathroom floor where he would spend the rest of the night.

Phil put the kettle on to boil, dutifully carrying out his part of their ritual—a ritual created just as much for Phil's peace of mind as for Dan's comfort. He carefully prepared two cups of tea, adding a splash of milk to his own but leaving Dan's plain for his sensitive stomach, and carried them down to the bathroom.

"Dan?" Phil called softly, using his toe to knock on the door. He was met with the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by the door creaking open to reveal a pale, sweaty-looking Dan.

"Thanks, Phil," he mumbled, cupping his mug in two hands to savor its warmth.

"You should sit down," Phil directed, "while I go get the duvet." He hurried down the hall into Dan's bedroom, tugging the duvet and pillows off the bed, and returned to the bathroom to settle Dan in.

Once Dan was all comfy and warm, Phil decided to go fetch his own blanket and join his friend for a while. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and Phil imagined that Dan didn't want to be alone any more than he did.

By the time Phil returned to the bathroom, however, Dan had unwrapped himself from the nest Phil had created and was hunched once more over the toilet, forehead resting on his arm as he coughed and spat. Phil dropped to his knees beside Dan and began to rub circles into his back, feeling Dan's muscles taut under his hand.

Phil was no longer squeamish about vomit—it barely even registered in his mind at all anymore now that it was such a common occurrence in their lives. He no longer had to worry about his own stomach joining the party, and as such he could focus on comforting Dan during these moments of sickness.

When Dan finally finished and sank back into his pillows and blankets, Phil settled in beside him. "I've brought something else," he announced, producing a book of Christmas stories that he'd been given by his grandmother many years ago.

"Phil," Dan said, giving Phil his classic _I'm not a child_ look.

But Phil persisted. "Please let me read you one," he begged. "It's Christmas."

"Not yet it's not," Dan retorted.

Phil said nothing; he met Dan's stubborn gaze with a forced pout and puppy dog eyes—something that almost always got Phil his way.

Dan sighed dramatically. "Fine."

"Yay!" Phil cried gleefully, flipping through the pages of the book until he landed on his favorite story.

Phil pulled the blankets up over his legs, took a sip of tea, and cleared his throat. "There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest, but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes…"


	7. Chapter 7

As winter bled into spring, Dan's illness and the treatment required to fight it began to take a deeper toll on his body and his mind. He rarely got quite so violently ill after his chemo anymore, but the state he was in now was almost worse.

Phil could spot a noticeable difference in Dan's weight, despite the way he was always bundled up in multiple jumpers. Phil could also tell how Dan was feeling by the greyish pallor of his skin and the shade of the purplish circles under his eyes. The paler the skin and the darker the circles, the worse off Dan was.

The emotional effect of the illness was the worst part, though. Dan no longer wanted to stop for the customary lunch and ice cream after his treatments. He lost interest in filming videos, and even in replying to his fans' numerous well wishes. All he did was sleep, it seemed. And all Phil did was worry.

Dan managed to make it all the way to mid-March before his blood counts dropped low enough to delay his treatment. They had journeyed all the way to the hospital and waited for what felt like ages, only to be told that Dan would not be receiving his chemo today because his body was simply too weak—instead, he would be admitted to the hospital overnight for monitoring and a blood transfusion.

Unfortunately, this hospital stay was only the first of many to come. Whether it was due to Dan's blood counts, or the constant illnesses he would pick up due to his weakened immune system, it felt like he spent as much time in hospital as he did at home. The whole situation proved to be too much for Dan to bear, and whatever infinitesimal glimmer of light that had been left in his eyes was quickly snuffed out.

This devastated Phil. Phil, the eternal optimist, the fixer, the cheerer-upper, the empathetic soul, found his own internal light growing strangely dim. It was a heavier burden than he thought anybody deserved to bear. And the hardest part about it was that as awful as Phil felt about the situation, Dan surely felt a hundred times worse.

Phil tried his hardest to remind Dan that this would all be over one day, a distant memory. When Phil spoke about it, he made sure to emphasize the chance of survival, the chance of success, of everything going according to plan. But late at night when silence fell throughout their flat, Phil's mind went the opposite direction.

Yes, this would all be over eventually. One way or another, this season of their lives would end. Either Dan would get better and they would move on with their lives, or the cancer would win and Phil would be forced to go it alone.

The second option chilled Phil to the bone.


	8. Chapter 8

As springtime wore on, the temperatures rose, and the trees began to dress themselves in the yellow-green of new leaves, the only thing on Phil's mind was Dan's upcoming surgery. He had completed the months of chemotherapy, and now it was time for the surgeon to delve in and take a closer look.

The tumors had shrunk enough to allow for removal, as far as the doctors could tell by the myriad of CT scans, MRIs, PET scans, and X-rays they took in the weeks leading up to the operation. They were cautiously optimistic.

Of course, there were a billion things that could go wrong. Dan was having a rib and a portion of his left lung removed, and something as drastic as that would surely not come without complications. There was a chance that they would be unable to remove all of the cancerous areas, or that the cancer cells had set up camp in some other part of Dan's body where the imaging couldn't detect them. And of course there was also a fairly significant chance that the cancer would come back with a vengeance in the future.

Dan refused to let himself believe that there was any way he'd survive this, but Phil chose to let hope well up inside of him as the day of the surgery approached. Somebody had to be optimistic, to dwell on the chance of a good result. And as usual, that somebody was Phil.

"Are you ready?" Phil asked, giving Dan's hand a squeeze. They were in the preoperative area, the nurses and doctors scurrying around to get all of their last-minute details in order.

"You know I still have only a thirty per cent chance of surviving this, right?" Dan reminded him.

Phil felt a twinge of fear in his gut, but he suppressed it. "Well, in the grand scheme of things, that's true. But in this moment on this day in this room, you have the best surgeon with the best team working on you, and you're going to make it through this surgery and probably feel better afterwards, and whatever happens happens and we'll worry about it when it does. But right now your mission is to have this operation."

"How do you know I have the best surgeon?" Dan asked, his voice small and frightened.

Phil shrugged. "She has pretty hands."

Dan chuckled, a reassuring sound. "Well that settles it, then. I'm ready."


	9. Chapter 9

"Phil, you idiot!" Dan cried, jamming the buttons on the controller. "That was _me_!"

"Sorry, sorry," Phil murmured, concentrating intently on the screen in front of him. He and Dan were filming a gaming video, and Phil had just accidently shot Dan's character in the face. "I don't know how to use this!"

Dan laughed out loud as he waited for his character to re-spawn. "I feel like this is probably a good time to end this video before I lose my patience with this guy," he said, jerking his head in Phil's direction.

"I guess we're chalking up another win for Dan," Phil declared with a sheepish grin. "But next time it'll be me. Just you wait."

"Yeah, maybe if we play Mario Kart and you force me to play the slowest car with the cushion wheels again," Dan taunted. "Maybe then you'll have your chance."

"That's not nice," Phil complained, elbowing his friend in the arm. Dan ignored him, too focused on ending the video to retaliate.

Phil was quiet as Dan recited his little ending spiel. He didn't want to speak for fear of choking up on camera, overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude at having his best friend back. Dan was now in remission, after a whole year of miserable treatments and multiple operations, and this was their first "real" video since before all of this had happened. Phil had done his best to maintain both his and Dan's various forms of social media, keeping the fans updated and trying to put out whatever halfhearted content he could come up with while Dan was out of commission, but he was still in disbelief that so many of their fans had still stood by them despite it all.

But now all of that was behind them, Dan was back in the saddle again, and the world was as it should be. Phil still lived with a whisper of fear in the back of his mind, reminding him that remission didn't always mean cure, but for now he would savor every single day he had with Dan—the healthy, happy, sarcastic, hilarious Dan that he thought he had lost forever.

Everything was going to be okay.


End file.
